FSML: Expanding the Biological/Physical Sampling at Rutgers Marine Field Station at Tuckerton

了解鱼类和海洋生物进出沿海河口的运动对科学家来说是一项挑战，对了解其生态至关重要。解决这个问题是一个关键问题，因为过去30年收集的观察表明，大西洋中部的渔业正在发生变化。观察表明，鱼类的数量和种类一直在发生重大变化。这些变化的含义和原因将需要能够解决鱼类在自然界中的动态的定量信息。传统的采样技术将无法解决这些动态，因此科学家将无法理解这些变化发生的原因。该项目将建立一个网络，持续跟踪海洋交界的穆里卡河-大海湾河口的浮游动物、鱼类和海洋哺乳动物。这项工作将收集一个连续的记录，让我们第一次追踪动物进出河口的运动。研究这个河口的一个优势是美国东北部最干净的河口-海岸入口之一，使我们能够解决一个原始河口的动力学问题。罗格斯大学海洋野外站（RUMFS） （http://marine.rutgers.edu/rumfs/）位于Mullica河&amp；#8722；大湾（MRGB）河口，是新泽西州雅克库斯托国家河口研究保护区（JCNERR）的一部分。RUMFS的建筑、堤道和场地占地7英亩，位于新泽西州南部小蛋湾附近的一个半岛上。海洋和河口之间的水交换主要通过一个狭窄但深（15米）的小鸡蛋入口，它直接毗邻RUMFS设施（米）。与美国东北部的大多数河口不同，周边地区，包括大部分松林流域，都受到保护，不受大规模人为干扰。因此，MRGB河口可能是东海岸最清洁的河口-海岸入口。这使RUMFS成为一个独特的天然实验室。现有的RUMFS工作集中在长期鱼类时间序列采样上。这些调查为该地区鱼类的多样性、生态和生活史提供了宝贵的信息；然而，相对于这些系统的生态动力学，采样在空间和时间上是稀疏的。虽然通过标记/被动声学技术获得了一些关于个体物种进出河口的信息，但关于进出大湾的鱼类的多样性和丰度的信息有限，不足以将物理条件与鱼类生态联系起来。为了填补这一关键数据缺口，我们建议采用一种集成系统，该系统将多频组合BioSonic多频阵列与海底水听器相结合。该系统将部署在现场站附近。RUMFS毗邻一条深通道（约12米深）（1.5米），该通道是JC NERR的主要海洋入口。我们建议在航道中部署声学系统，以跟踪生物进出河口的运动。集成的多频主动/被动声学阵列将补充RUMFS 30年来每周进行的独一无二的浮游生物采样。拟议的声学阵列的增加将通过向校园实时提供本地和全球层面的相关信息，加强正在进行和新形成的研究生和本科生的努力。这些数据将通过开放获取数据和可视化软件提供给罗格斯大学和两所社区学院的广泛课程。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Understanding the movements of fish and marine life in and out of coastal estuaries is a challenge for scientists and critical to understanding their ecology. Solving this problem is a critical issue as observations collected over the last 30 years suggests that the fisheries in the Mid- Atlantic is changing. Observations suggest the number and type of fish have been showing significant changes. The implications and reasons for the changes will require quantitative information that can resolve the dynamics of fish in nature. Traditional sampling techniques will not be able to resolve these dynamics, and as a result scientists will not be able to understand why these changes are occurring. This project will develop network that will continuously track zooplankton, fish, and marine mammals in the Mullica River-Great Bay estuary right at the interface of the ocean. This effort will collect a continuous record in time allowing us to for the first time track the animal movement in and out of the estuary. An advantage studying this estuary is one of the cleanest estuary-coastal inlets in the northeast United States allowing us to resolve dynamics in a pristine estuary. The Rutgers University Marine Field Station (RUMFS) (http://marine.rutgers.edu/rumfs/) is located in the Mullica River−Great Bay (MRGB) estuary which is part of the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR) in New Jersey.. The buildings, causeway, and grounds of RUMFS occupy seven acres on a peninsula close to Little Egg Inlet in southern New Jersey. Water is exchanged between the ocean and the estuary mainly through a narrow but deep (15 m) Little Egg Inlet that is directly adjacent (meters) to the RUMFS facility. Unlike most estuaries in the northeastern U.S., the surrounding area, including most of the Pine Barrens watershed, is protected from large-scale human disturbance. As a result, the MRGB estuary is probably the cleanest estuary-coastal inlets on the east coast. This makes RUMFS a unique natural laboratory. Existing RUMFS efforts have been centered around long-term fish time series sampling. These surveys have provided invaluable information about the diversity, ecology, and life histories of fishes in the region; however, the sampling is sparse in space and time relative to ecological dynamics of these systems. Although there is some information about individual species movements in and out of the estuary through tagging/passive acoustic techniques, the available information is limited on the diversity and abundance of fish moving into and out of Great Bay with sufficient resolution to link the physical conditions to the fish ecology. We propose to fill this crucial data gap by acquiring an integrated system that combines a multi-frequency combining a BioSonic multi-frequency array with a SubSea hydrophone. The system will be deployed adjacent to the field station. RUMFS sits adjacent (1.5 meters) to a deep channel (~12 meters depth) that is the major ocean entrance to JC NERR. We propose to deploy the acoustic system in the channel to track the movement of organisms in and out of the estuary. The integrated multi-frequency active/passive acoustics array will complement the one-of-a-kind plankton sampling RUMFS has been conducting on a weekly basis for 30 years. The addition of the proposed acoustic array will strengthen ongoing and newly formed graduate and undergraduate efforts by providing information that is relevant on both the local and global levels in real-time back to campus. The data will be served to a wide range of courses both at Rutgers as well as two community colleges through open access data and visualization software.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.